Those of you who do not live in the once-Golden State probably think those of us who do are joshing them when we retell the strange, outrageous, ludicrous, outlandish, stupid, weird, insane, inane, ridiculous, idiotic, foolish, sophomoric and otherworldly laws those doofuses up there in Sacrataxyou (mis)manage to conjure up.
Yes, folks, they are waaaaaaaaaaaay past legalizing maryjowanna! Which they did last year. They're into something much, MUCH more hallucinogenic to have decided it was in the best interest of their citizens to consider intentionally infecting one another with AIDS, without warning, to no longer be a felony! Or that pre-pubescent hooking should no longer be a crime (don't wanna' saddle little girls with a felony, now do we?). Or for their adult pimps, for that matter (!).
But now they've really outdone themselves! They just passed a law outlawing cash bail for bonds of less than $50,000! So, if the judge thinks your crime warrants a bail of less than $50k, you're sprung on what's called an "own recognizance." Meaning, I guess, you're expected to somehow be responsible enough for your actions to appear in court one chosen day in the future when you were irresponsible enough in the past to get in trouble in the first place.
The "cash bail" process usually works like this: You put up 10% of the bail amount the judge gives you with your or somebody else's cash and/or assets securing the remainder. This permits us to use our Constitutional rights to achieve bail when we might otherwise not be able to afford it. Which would leave us wasting away in a prison somewhere, just as it was back in King George's day. Which is kind of why we had it out with George, and the rest as they say is history. So, a low-level BandK (breaking and entering) felony might bail out at $10,000 and the perp walks for $1G.
Our Guv Jerry (Moonbeam) Brown doesn't like that system. He apparently thinks that nothing less than Capital Murder deserves incarceration, and the bail to try to escape it. He's proven that by kicking more than 61,000 hardened felons out of our prisons over the past two years. So for everybody else, I guess he feels they should go on home and have some nice warm milk and cookies. And so he's (mis)managed to overturn our entire bail system, which employs more than 25,000 nationwide, and produces gross revenue in excess of $7 Billion annually.
Remember ever driving past one of those little trailers just outside of nearly every town in 'Murica, with their giant signs all around screaming "Bail Bonds" to the High Heaven. There's 17,000 of them. Approx. 30% of those bonding firms are located in California. And I'd offer they'd say, "Unfortunately." 95% of California's bail bond business will disappear, and along with it all the jobs, by this time next year...
And what is the advantage to the public? None I can imagine, except that hundreds of thousands of low- to mid-level criminals will be out there running around in your neighborhood, bond-free, while Jerry Brown is enjoying a nice, comfy retirement on more than 143 years of public service (not sure on that number, but after 8 years as Secretary of State, 8 years as Mayor of Oakland, 4 years as Dog Catcher, and 16 years as Governor, it's pretty close to that).
Lemme' ask a rhetorical question: If illegal aliens don't bother to make their immigration court dates, why should criminals who have no skin in the game?
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